Side of a Bullet
by bananasrokk
Summary: One careless comment leads to a school shooting. The heart and soul of the glee club gets caught in the crossfire. Set between seasons 1 and 2. R&R!


**Hola! This is my first Glee fic. I was nibbled by this plot bunny in the summer and I wrote this chapter. Then my computer crashed, and I forgot about it. I was looking at my old files today, and decided I might as well post this. Hope you like. PS: This takes place between seasons 1 and 2, because that's when I wrote it. :P**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Glee. I so wish I did, though, if only so I could make Sue Sylvester the President. (Can you imagine?)**

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McKinley was a big high school.

So big, in fact, that it was possible for a select few students to slip under the radar enough for faculty and fellow students not to see those students get angrier and angrier with the world. Usually, those students got over it and moved on with their lives, channeling their frustrations into positive outlets and becoming productive members of society.

There was, however, that one in a million who gets slushied one too many times after a humiliating breakup and snaps completely.

Suzy Pepper was one such student.

She woke up on the morning of November 17th, a week after Shane dumped her in a mass text to the whole school, with a rare smile on her face. She showered, got dressed, put on her makeup, ate breakfast, brushed her teeth, and right before leaving the house grabbed the .44 - the one they thought she didn't know about - out of her father's dresser drawer. She didn't bother checking how many bullets were in it (she needed three, four tops) and slipped it into her purse. Then she was out the door.

All the way to school in the smelly bus she told herself that she didn't really need to use it. Only if they gave her reason to. But they always gave her reason to.

Fourth period.

Some blond kid called her a freak, and that was it. She fired one shot into his chest and the school erupted around her. It was glorious. Suzy Pepper, no longer the freak who'd had a crush on the Spanish teacher. Now she was Suzy Pepper, stay on her good side or you'll get a bullet for your trouble. She revelled in the power as the other students in her class stampeded out of the room. She stayed there for a good five minutes, looking down at the kid she'd taken down, listening to the announcement that the school was on lockdown. Then she checked the gun.

Five bullets left. That suited her just fine. She walked calmly out of the classroom, keeping her anger and hurt just out of sight, just like she had every other day for three years. She kept thinking to herself that if they'd all been just a little nicer, they wouldn't be in this situation right now.

She went down the hallway to the girl's room, where she washed the tiny specks of blood off her glasses, hid the gun back in her purse, and ran into the nearest classroom.

"Let me in!" she screamed desperately, pounding on the door. "Please let me in! He's got a gun! Help me!"

Mr. Ellis, the geography teacher, opened the door.

"Get inside, quick, and keep quiet." He whispered tersely.

She looked around the room. Instead of looking worried for her, being stuck out there with the gun "man," the other students looked mad at her for knocking on their door and potentially giving them away. They had no idea...

She spent the next twenty minutes in the classroom, until Mr. Ellis got the page that they were evacuating students silently, just like she'd planned. As the rest of the class left the room hurriedly, she slipped silently under the teacher's desk. No one noticed she was missing, and why would anyone miss Suzy Pepper the Freak anyways?

She heard the door close, and waited for a few more minutes until crawling out from under the desk and peering out the window. The whole school must be out by now. She hoped she hadn't missed her chance.

She made her way out into the hall and sped towards the guidance office. She rounded the corner just in time to see Miss Pillsbury standing up and making her way towards the glass door of her office.

That bitch. Who did she think she was, stealing her Will away from her. Suzy was pretty sure that crazy ginger bitch had been the reason Will had spurned her. Miss Pillsbury was the one thing standing between her and the man she loved, and that wall needed to be obliterated.

"Miss Pillsbury!" she cried, running into the glass office and standing in front of the door, blocking the councellor's way out.

Emma's brown eyes widened. "Suzy, what are you doing here? You're supposed to be outside, they're evacuating the school!"

"There's something I need give you..."

Suzy Pepper pulled the gun out of her purse, cocked it, and pointed it at her rival's head. Emma froze like a rabbit who had just spotted a wolf. Her mouth opened, and she tried frantically to think of something to say to the girl to calm her down, but she just couldn't speak. All she could think about was how much of a mess it would make when her brains splattered all over the glass office.

"Out in the hall." Suzy said to the councillor, nothing but ice cold steel in her voice now.

"S-Suzy..." Emma stammered, finding her voice at last. "We c-can talk this through..."

"NOW!" Suzy screamed. She grabbed the redhead's arm and pulled her out into the hall, into full view of the school's security cameras. She wanted people to see exactly what happened to bitches who tried to come between her and her Will.

"Please, Suzy..." Emma begged, tears streaming down her face. "You don't have to do this..."

Suzy looked at Emma, coldly, nothing but hatred behind her glasses.

"Yes." she said without emotion. "I do."

Her finger tightened over the trigger.

Will Schuester shepherded his frantic students out onto the McKinley High football field. After taking attendance and ensuring that everyone in his class had made it out, he directed them further across the field, behind the barriers the police had put in, marking the "safe zone".

There were three ambulances in the parking lot, one kid was being loaded in at this very moment. He seemed to be the only casualty so far.

Will couldn't believe it. A school shooting. An actual school shooting in Lima, Ohio. You hear about them all the time in the news, but you never think it's going to happen to you.

"Rachel, come on, you've got to move." He told the girl, who was sobbing hysterically. Rachel had always been a bit of a drama queen, and the situation wasn't helping it.

"B-but Mr Schue..." she managed between sobs. "I c-can't find Finn. What if he's... what if..."

She broke off in a loud wail, and he did his best to comfort her with a quick hug. Then he saw a head of spiky, dark hair sticking out above the crowd. The height gave him away.

"Rachel.." Will said, prying himself out of her arms, "Finn's right there. Now go with him and get outside of the barriers!"

Rachel looked up. "Finn!" she cried, and ran into his arms. "Are you alright?"

"Fine," he said, although he looked pale. It was one of the guys from the football team who'd been shot. "You?"

Rachel nodded, and the two ran together for cover.

Will glanced to the school, then at the crowd forming behind the barriers. He did a quick scan, and his heart dropped into his stomach. Everyone seemed to be out already. Everyone except-

"Emma." he breathed, and ran back inside faster than he'd ever run before.

This was not unnoticed by a select few.

"Mr. Schue!" Tina cried, watching with Artie from a safe distance. Rachel and Finn joined her. "What is he doing?"

Sue Sylvester heard, and turned away from her hysterical Cheerios just in time to see him enter the building. All that foul hair product must have finally seeped into his brain.

"SCHUE!" Shouted Mr. Figgins in vain. "YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO GO IN THERE! THE SCHOOL IS ON LOCKDOWN!"

But he was already inside, still running full pelt towards Emma's office. He rounded the final corner and skidded to a halt. The first thing he saw was Emma, her hands up, her eyes brimming with tears, clearly terrified.

The next thing he saw made his blood run cold. Suzy Pepper, holding a gun. Pointing it at Emma with a hand shaking, not from pity or fear, but rage. It all came together.

Suzy had never stopped loving him. She saw Emma as a threat, and she was going to remove that threat. This was all his fault...

He was moving before he was even fully conscious of it, the graffitied lockers were a blur in his peripheral vision. All he could think about now was getting between Emma and that bullet...

"Please..." he heard her voice faintly through the sudden rush of adrenaline, "You don't have to do this..."

"Yes." He heard Suzy reply mercilessly. "I do."

He was almost there. Neither woman had noticed him. Her finger tightened over the trigger, seeming to do so in slow motion.

"EMMA!" He shouted. Her head turned, and her eyes widened.

"Will... no-"

Too late. Will came to a halt in front of her just as Suzy realized what had happened. Too late. The gun fired, and a red spot blossomed in the centre of his chest. He stood for a split second, eyes wide, heart racing, then collapsed with a groan.

Suzy shreiked, a horrible sound a banshee couldn't match. Then, before Emma could react at all, the girl brought the gun up again. Emma closed her eyes. She heard the shot, braced herself for the pain, the emptiness.

Nothing.

She opened her eyes to see the dead girl on the floor, the gun still in her mouth.

Time stood still for a split second, and then-

She heard an agonized, choking groan. She knelt on the floor next to Will, and she reached out with a shaking hand to hold his.

"Will... oh, God..."

"Emma.." he gasped. "A- are you okay?"

There was so much blood. Emma took off her sweater and pressed it against the wound, trying to remember exactly what was on the First Aid : You Can Be A Hero pamphlet in her office. Direct Pressure to the wound. That was it. She put more weight on the sweater, and Will cried out in pain.

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry Will..." she said tearfully. But the pain had seemingly caused him to pass out. "Will, you need to look at me. Will, open your eyes. Please, come on, please don't-"

She was cut off by the feeling of something wet pooling around her where she was kneeling. She looked down, and thought she was going to be sick.

It was blood.

It was worse than she had thought.

The hand that she was holding was too cold. He was losing too much blood. She let go and reached for his throat, trying to keep her shaking hand still enough to find a pulse.

Nothing.

"No." She whimpered, struggling again to remember that damn first aid pamphlet. "No, no, no, no, no..." She couldn't think. She couldn't breathe because all she saw was the blood and the mess and she was a little girl again in the runoff lagoon at the dairy farm, only it wasn't cow refuse she was stuck in now, no, it was his blood, Will's blood, and there was no pulse, and-

"HELP!" She screamed in desperation, just as she had when she was a little girl. "SOMEBODY PLEASE HELP US!"

_But how can they help when his heart's not beating?_ She had to keep his heart beating-

_CPR._

That's what the pamphlet had said. It all came back to her in a flash, and she put her hands in the centre of his chest, locked her elbows, and pushed down, just like the pamphlet said, to the beat of "Stayin' Alive" by the BeeGees. 30 compressions, and then two breaths.

She took her hands off his chest, trying not to look at all the blood on the (oh God, there was so much blood...), and tilted his head back, opening the airway, right, just like it said on the pamphlet. She gently pinched his nose shut, closed her mouth over his, and breathed in. And another breath. His lips were so cold...

No time to think about that. Start again with compressions. 30 compressions. Breath. Breath. 30 compressions. Breath. Breath. It's a cycle, a rythm if you want to put it into musical terms. Or kind of like the directions on the back of the shampoo bottle; lather, rinse, repeat.

She settled into a rythm like that, she lost track of time. All she could see was Will's face. So pale, and his lips were so cold, and _shouldn't someone be here to help by now_? Tears were falling freely from her face, dripping down and mixing with the blood.

"Please don't die, Will." she half-whispered, half-sobbed.

Her arms were getting tired, she couldn't keep this up for much longer, and the blood was everywhere, but she couldn't stop because if she did Will would die, and he couldn't die, not now, not like this...

... And that's how, fifteen minutes after the shot rang out, the paramedics found Emma Pillsbury, the girl who hated any kind of mess, elbow deep in blood, sobbing, trying to get the man she loved to start breathing again.

They pulled her off him, and she stood and watched and cried as they cut his shirt open, exposing the wound and even more blood - why was there so much blood? - and they placed the paddles on his chest.

"Charging..."

"Clear!"

_Beep._

A sudden jolt of electricity, Will's body twitched the slightest bit. Emma choked out a sob. He was supposed to start breathing again now, right? That was how it happened on TV, they shock the heart and it starts beating again... why isn't it working?

"Reset."

"Charging..."

"Clear!"

_Beep._

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_**And there it is. As I said, I wrote this a long time ago, so I'm not sure if I should continue or not. Leave a review either way, REVIEWS ARE LOVE! **


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